"Thank you," said Clara, touched by this confidence; "Iris will be safe with me. It is very natural that you should want to go home again. And you will be content to stay with me, my dear, won't you? You need not be afraid, sir; I assure you that her interests will not in any way suffer. Tell her to write and let you know exactly what is done. Let her, however, since she is an English girl, remain with English friends, and get to know her cousins and relations. You can safely trust her with me, Dr. Washington." "Thank you," said Joe. "You know that when one has known a girl all her life, one is naturally anxious about her happiness. We are almost brother and sister." "I know; and I am sure, Mr. Washington, we ought to be most grateful to you. As for the money you have expended upon her, let me once more beg of you--" Joe waved his hand majestically. "As for that," he said, "the money is spent. Iris is welcome to it, if it were ten times as much. Now, madam, you trusted me, the very first day that you saw me, with two hundred pounds sterling. Only an English lady would have done that. You trusted me without asking me who or what I was, or doubting my word. I assure you, madam, I felt that kindness, and that trust, very much indeed, and in return, I have brought you Iris herself. After all expenses paid of coming over and getting back, buying a few things for Iris, if I find that there's anything over, I shall ask you to take back the balance. Madam, I thank you for the money, but I am sure I have repaid you--with Iris." This was a very clever speech. If there had been a shadow of doubt before it in Clara's heart (which there was not), it would vanish now. She cordially and joyfully accepted her newly-found cousin. "And now, Iris," he said with a manly tremor in his voice, "I do not know if I shall see you again before I go away. If not, I shall take your fond love to all of them at home--Tom, and Dick, and Harry, and Harriet, and Prissy, and all of them"--Joe really was carrying the thing through splendidly--"and perhaps, my dear, when you are a grand lady in England, you will give a thought--a thought now and again--to your old friends across the water." "Oh, Joe!" cried Lotty, really carried away with admiration, and ashamed of her skeptical spirit. "Oh," she whispered, "ain't you splendid!" "But you must not go, Dr. Washington," said Clara, "without coming again to say farewell. Will you not dine with us to-night? Will you stay and have lunch?" "No, madam, I thank you. It will be best for me to leave Iris alone with you. The sooner she learns your English ways and forgets American ways, the better." "But you are not going to start away for Liverpool at once? You will stay a day or two in London--" The American physician said that perhaps he might stay a week longer for scientific purposes. "Have you got enough money, Joe?" asked the new Iris thoughtfully. Joe gave her a glance of infinite admiration.